It’s not good news…for London and Londoners
Unfortunately, we’ve not made it through to the next round. Here’s our rejection letter:
Thank you for responding to the recent tender submission for the ‘Creative Development and design of a Brand for London – PN493/2’ services to the GLA.
I regret to advise you that your quotation has not been selected. This decision has been reached following a detailed analysis and evaluation of your quotation returned against the specified selection criteria.
If you wish to receive feedback on your proposals please contact me. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the time and effort taken over the preparation and submission of your quotation. I hope this will not discourage you from quoting/tendering for the Greater London Authority in the future.
Kind regards
David Adam
Should this deter us?
A Brand for London 
Get the press on your side boys, it’s a travesty!!! Use the designs for merchandising through we.are surely this is an ideal demonstration of the social fashion idea We’ll all buy one.
Well I can’t believe it..
They could have given a better explination, how about we all email him?
The way I see it there are now 3 options:
1: Boycott all future products bearing the winning brand
2: Forget it all and go along with the flow
3: Design a better brand for London that is designed, chosen for and supported by everyone
I go with option 3…
Aw no, I’m really quite surprised by that. Definitely get more feedback though, I want to know why they didn’t accept it! I don’t think you should let it deter you, no.
We have email David Adams already. We’re interested too 🙂
Thanks for the support!
MB
Sounds like a very generic reply to me. It will be VERY interesting to see who has made it through, who gets the job and what is eventually rolled out.
More interesting than the feedback from GLA, I feel would be hearing internal feedback from MB. To me, seeing an open process like this, many questions are raised and left unanswered, chiefly considering the analytic and strategic aspects of the process. I feel they are not present in the material presented and the debate on this website.
Apart from Mr Thomas’ early contribution, there seems to be such an unquestioned early-stage focus on gathering around a ‘symbol’. But is that the most appropriate way to address the brief? And if the symbol is the beginning of a larger strategy and full-scale programme, how does it fit into that perspective? Did MB consider issues related to Service Design and how that applies to the city as a brand? I interpret GLA’s main requirement for this umbrella brand being for inward investment and tourism. How could a new brand play a part in – or better yet drive – a process where various entities, institutions and companies work on, or for the benefit of, the same platform (London).
A brand exercise like this, I believe, has to engage at a deeper level than its users. It has to consider aspects of infrastructure, information architecture, urban planning and so on.
Very disappointed to hear you guys weren’t successful. Hopefully you’ll get more feedback regarding the proposal soon.
This blog and process has shown great initiative by involving London through social media. I can’t see how they could turn down such an enthusiastic idea…
I’m quite curious to hear what the big reason is, the annoying part of the whole tender business is you could loose it on the minor details … which is so unfair!
Don’t know how strict it is in the UK, but here in the Netherlands it was a pain and a fulltime job to get all the details sorted out. I vote for rebellion and brand London on your own, quite sure you have a huge group of followers on this. And remember it’s the Londoners that need a brand, not the city 😉
Greetz, Andries
What a crying shame, this is one of the few times I feel social media has been benefiting the community. ‘A Brand for London’ has made me feel somewhat involved in the re-branding yet this signifies the end of any voice I have had in the matter.
Thank you for involving us, it has been brilliant.
I’m keen to see the feedback. It may have just been a budget issue.
Hey MB!
I feel sorry for you! I’m sure that the reasons for rejecting your pitch hasn’t got anything to do with the performance. That makes it even more hard to take (i can imagine…)
You did a fantastic pitch and therefore I would like to thank you again! You are absolutely forward thinking! Keep going this way, it’s the right one…
Cheer up guys…
Bastards! What a bummer, who has been selected have they announced them yet?
If you have the resources it would be brilliant to continue what you are doing and still produce a brand for London. Post it on your blog and see what people reaction to it is.
It would open up a great debate for what is and what could have been!
[…] they didn’t make it into the next round. It would have been interesting to follow the process of developing the brand […]
Such fantastic idea and concept about building a brand. It is a pity that you are not in 2nd round and probably they didn’t realize how big potential this idea has or they just didn’t understand what they are reading.
You had and have our abroad support.
Hey, we just put online demo of twitter mashup app that can bring you tweets about Happiness, Sadness, Love and also live search.
Try search with “brand of/for London” or different to see how much people are tweeting about your pitch site. Also you can find people in radius for London city if you select it.
http://www.myfeel.mobi/
Hi JB,
Just a quick note to add our backing to the way that MB has approached this tender process. Keeping tabs on the Brand for London blog has been like watching an online reality documentary on our industry. It’s been refreshing to be part of (if only as an observer) a public sector procurement that is truly in the public realm and I’m proud that it’s the creative industry (MB) that has taken the lead in attempting to prise open the mystery and closed nature of a flawed system.
We have gone through the public sector procurement process on many occasions and welcome any approach that is more transparent and less of an administration lottery.
Cheers!
Hi there,
Disappointed for you guys, just wanted to thank you for sharing your submission, really appreciate Moving Brands, as you document your work (which I admire greatly) and process very well, which is always very insightful.
Hope better fortune comes your way.
Best regards
Bob
http://www.original-linkage.co.uk
I think that for the experiment to have any validity then you have to continue the project. If not only to take it beyond a curio within the creative community and to genuinely engage and listen to thousands of Londoners voices. As with any good (Social Media) endeavor failure is more often the precursor to something more insightful and genuine, it should also reveal maybe more of London than we are comfortable with and could provide a credible, alternative ‘guerilla’ brand for London.
So sorry to hear that, you guys put so much effort in!
I say do a bit of guerilla branding 🙂
I really think you should continue with this open branding process. It’s definitely still worthwhile. And anyway, I suspect you guys at MB will find it hard to just stop the London branding work you have begun and would rather continue to see how it develops simply because of your love for design. Once you begin to apply your creative mind to a project I find that it’s almost impossible to stop.
I’m working on some designs that build on elements of what you have already posted. I will send them to you soon for addition to the ‘Submit your design’ page. They may not even get noticed by the ‘powers that be’ but putting ideas into the public domain can often have unforeseen positive consequences.
What a shame.
Empathy, innovation, inclusion and quality obviously not part of the selection criteria
Considering the ingenuity you guys applied to the process the rejection letter is so generic as to be rude. That said, actually delivering a project working with a committee of Mayoral bods could have proved a little frustrating.
With all the publicity you’ve received maybe just call it quits and move on to the next projects. Anyway, to continue the project suggests at some point you’ll have to make a logo and use it somehow, meaning there’ll be yet another logo for London.
Bad luck guys
what a great campaign you came up with and all you get is a generic reply. Dont these people know how much time, effort and money go into these pitches and they cant even be bothered to reply properly
Really loved your ideas
Andrew
just quick idea, keep it up with the project and
make t-shits with your logo, etc… might be big success
As the creative director of a London design agency I take my hat off to you for your bold proposition and pitch. I sympathise also with the response you received which, of course, in no way rewards you or represents the effort put in to the project and its concepts.
This process has prompted us to establish a strong policy on tenders. We, now politely but firmly, request detailed feedback following any pitch in which we are unsuccessful. Thankfully, it’s relatively uncommon for us, but I strongly feel that any client, large or small, receives significant value from designers who pass over ideas and creativity in good faith – often at considerable cost to them and completely risk/cost free for the client.
Morally, it is fair and just that the creative team has the result of this process in order to recover from the disappointment and gain strength and further knowledge for any future proposals.
I wish you all well and it’s been absorbing to observe such open creative energy.
Jonathan Lucas
Advantage Design Consultants
Such an amazing blog / experiment / concept. The thinking and work was at such a high level.
As a designer, I loved every minute of this grand endeavor and now I am sad it is over.
Best of luck to you.